the French vs. the Franks

Sander,
No, what I mean is that I can live in Catalan in the Catalan speaking territory the same way Quebecois can live in French within Quebec although they have to use English in the other Canadian provinces. The big difference is that Spanish is official all over the Spanish State.
There is a big issue now in Spain about using Catalan, Galician and Euskera (Basque) in the National Parliament in Madrid. Obviously, not everybody agrees (specially in the monolingual Spanish-speaking regions) but that is the way things are evolving, with Spain as a multi-national and multi-linguistic state.

Everybody must, of course, learn Castilian Spanish, the official language of the state and you can use Spanish anywhere in Spain and the other official languages in their historic territories. The result in Catalonia has been to pass from 60% catalanophones in 1975 to over 80% right now.

I would say Catalans tend to be less noisy than Castilian Spaniards but that doesn't make us any better (or worse). Catalonia has always had strong links with the rest of Europe and, historically, specially with France and Italy. Barcelona is something like 250 km. from the present day border.

Greg,
Greg I've enjoyed again very much your post and agree with almost everything. I'll try to find time to answer a few things but it is difficult. Regarding Occitan, you must know it's an official language in the Val d'Aran on the Catalan side in Spain. There, most of the children speak "Aranés" a variety of Bearnese Gascon. It's a valley with only 10.000 people but the language holds very strong and it is the only place in the world where Occitan is official, making it symbolically very important for the Occitans on the French side.

Very much the same happens in the Italian Alps where is is spoken by most children in the villages. So it isn't hardly surprising that the loss only affects French territory and it is due more to French policies than to the Occitans themselves. If you're told your language is only good to speak to the cows and hens you end up not speaking it. I have read in an old school in the Catalan Roussillon signs from before WWII that still say in white paint: "Soyez propres, parlez français" and another that says "Interdit de cracher et de parler patois". I'm not inventing anything, dear Greg. There are pictures of all that and I'm sure they are easy to find. Most of rural France didn't start abandoning Occitan or the other "languages of France" until the early 20th century and it was still quite common to speak Occitan in the countryside to children until the 1950s. There are still a few pockets of children speaking the language in the French mountain ranges and in part of interior Languedoc (I've heard them). I know all the facts you mentioned and quite a few more. I'm sure that if France changed "her" policies there would be a major revival and comeback. France isn't interested, of course, and I mean the French Establishment.

I know France extremely well (I will be in Paris for a week next Wednesday and I go to Occitania several times a year and I've visited all the regions at least once from Alsace, Bresse to the Atlantic coast. You can consider me a Frenchman as far as my knowledge of France goes. I can even speak French without a foreign accent. I majored in Catalan, Spanish, English and French and learnt Occitan in summer courses in Occitania back in the 80s.

There are many good things to France but in this aspect, and as a linguist, as a humanist and as a Catalan-speaker I can only feel angry. That doesn't mean, of course, that I don't have many splendid French friends amongst them quite a few are Catalanists or Occitanists and others are as Jacobin as you can only produce them in France. They're all charming as the French can cetainly be but France needs to revise her policies on this subject before it's too late and it loses a great part of its linguistic and cultural wealth.

I'm often mistaken for not liking France and the fact is I adore France, the real France I mean.

The da Vinci code ?!

Wassnt that about the bibel?

Frederik from Norway,

The stuff around 'da Vinci code' - that I haven't read - is above all marketing soup. The bright side of it is that it gives people from all walks of life and from very different linguistic backgrounds the opportunity to discover the unique savour of Franco-Occitan nebula.

I saw on TV that DVC included deeply ingrained myths that served either the French monarchy - Trojan (!) roots, direct genealogy to Jesus (no less...), the Saint-Graal, Jerusalem - or their Cathar opponents (Egypt-inspired architecure in Montségur). DVC might even deal with a treasure buried somewhere between Toulouse and Narbonne (or maybe in Ariège) that the Nazis sought like mads during the occupation of France (Hitler is said to have had loads of hectares dug to seize the mythical treasure).

The problem is that neognosticisms like Rose-Croix or maybe stuffs from Nostradamus were partially instrumentalised by politically far-right groupuscules or proselyte cults in the 70s.

Anyway, all that is a very valuable input maximising cultural-tourism business in the area and promoting publishing sales thanx to the luxuriant literature based on all that mic-mac.

No, but that was about the bible.

First I have to say that I am really impressed by the high level of knowledge you guys show!

I have not read the "Da Vinci Code", but I browsed through the book that inspired it: "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" by Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent. Of course very much of this stuff is just sensationalism (but good for tourism), especially because most of these theories were publicly known by the 1970s.

But after all, these books deal with two important people we discuss here: The Franks and the Occitans! One theory from the books are that the early Merovingian kings had married some person from the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, and that that person was descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. She is supposed to have fled to Southern Gaul with her child, just like Joseph from Arimathea fled to Glastonbury in England with the holy Grail...

I think the Jesus-had-children part of the theories do not matter at all, religiously. He was both true man and true god, so why not children, just like he had a mother, father, grandparents and probably siblings.

So the important theory is monarchism. But that seems very out-of-date, especially in France...

Frederik from Norway,

I have no idea if Jesus had children or came to Gaul to establish a royal dynasty there.

However, France's Gitans (Gipsies) worship a place of pilgrimage that's called Les Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer (in Camargue, in the Rhône Delta, a very 'end-of-land' area spangled with ponds) where they go once a year (around April I think) to celebrate la Vierge Noire (the Black Virgin).

According to the Gitan legend, Maria-Magdalena (plus her sister Martha and brother Lazarus) and Maria Jacobé (sister of the Holy Virgin) and Maria Salomé (mother of 2 apostles) decided to run away from Jerusalem to avoid persecutions against Christians. Bad luck : all were captured at Joppé and thrown in a craft that coundn't sail nor row. Good luck : they crossed the Mediterranean and finally landed in Camargue.

Maria Magadalena went to Sainte-Baume, Lazarus to Marseilles, Martha to Tarascon, while Maria Salomé and Maria Jacobé remained on the beach with Sara, their Egyptian servant and mother of all Gitans known as the Black Virgin.

Greg said:
While I knew of the tremendous literary ascendancy of Occitan within Western European countries, I was unaware that Gascon (well, half-surprised actually) and Catalan (complete surprise) were considered corrupted by contemporary Occitanophones.

Greg,
I remembered the exact words from a medieval book that "taught" how to write "good troubadouresque poetry". If my memory doesn't fail it should be called something like "Regles de Trobar". "Trobar" (to find) is actually to find the correct verses.

Catalans and Gascons used to mix solutions from their own "local speeches" and were, therefore, criticised by the more "classical" Occitans.

This is why the book tells us that they Catalans and Gascons used "un lengatge estranh" (strange language), although close as you know. Some Northern Italians wrote in Occitan as well and there are some Occitan verses in the "Divina Comedia" of Dante who actually was tempted to write the all book in Occitan but decided to do in his "vulgar" Italian language. Arnau Daniel, the great Occitan troubadour, recites some Occitan verses in the universal Comedia.

Some of the most important troubadours are, in fact, Catalans (Guillem de Cabestany, Cerverí de Girona...)

In Catalan (then and now) we would have said "llenguatge estrany". In the first word there are two major differences between Occitan and Catalan: the palatalisation of the initial "l" and the maintenance of diphtong (ua). In the second word there is a palatalisation of the "n" (written: gn in French, nh in Occitan, ny in Catalan, ñ in Castilian and "nh" in Portuguese because of medieval troubadouresque influence!)

The fact is: Only Catalan (and some neighbouring Aragonese dialects) palatalise the "l", the diphtong (ua) is shared by all Iberian languages but not by the Gallo-Romanic ones although it does includes Gascon-Occitan; and all Gallo-Romance languages have consonantic endings whilst both Iberian and Italo-Romance languages have vowel endings (étrange, estranh, estrany but extraño in Spanish and stragno in Italian). Please observe that the Italians use the "gn" spelling for the palatal "n" like the French. You will also observe that French has many "aspirations" meaning a lost of a consonant: "étrange/estranh, fête/festa) a phenomenon, which can be also found in some southern Spanish dialects (such as Andalusian).



On the other end these vowel endings are what make Italian seem more (although often false) similar to Spanish (or Portuguese) and also some Latin archaisms which are used both in Italy and the Iberian peninsula.

The palatalisation of <l> does occur in French languages such as Gallo (an Oïl language spoken in Eastern Brittany = a Northern Romance language, not a Celtic or Britonic or Gallic language) :
<blue> : Ga <bleuve> [bjoev] = Fr <bleu> [bloe]
<key> : Ga <clé> [kje] = Fr <clef> [kle]
<rain> : Ga <plée> [pje] = Fr <pluie> [plyi].
In such cases, though, the palatalised <l> can’t be found at the initial of a word as is the case in Catalan <llenguatge>.

You wrote :”the diphtong (ua) is shared by all Iberian languages but not by the Gallo-Romanic ones although it does includes Gascon-Occitan”
Does ‘the diphtong (ua)’ mean the [wa]-sounding digraph or any graphy pronounced [wa] ? In the former case, you may find Fr <guano> [gwano], Fr <Guadeloupe> [gwadlup] and Fr <Guatémala> [gwatemala] or <guatémaltèque> [gwatemaltèk] (Guatemalan) – all 4 borrowed from Spanish. In the latter case, you may find [wa] in Fr <oiseau> [wazo] (bird), in Fr <voiture> [vwatyR] (car), in Fr <Wallonie> [waloni] (Wallonia) or in Fr <ouate> [wat] (wadding). In either case, it is hard for me to call the <ua> digraph a diphthong for the first graph <u> stands for the semi-consonant [w]. So I may safely say that the combination [wa] does exist in at least one Northern Romance language (French) : [wa] may be written <ua> (Spanish loanwords), <oi>, <wa> or <oua>.
However, the [wa] sound combination is indeed virtually impossible after a [g] sound (except for French words of Spanish origin).
The <gu> digraph is usually pronounced [g] in French today, but it might not have been the case in Old French where <gu> could have been realised [gw] (subject to confirmation). Some Oïl dialects diverged from French to the extent they dropped the <g> from <gu> thus leading to a [w] sound, not [gw]. This was (still is ?) typical of Old Normand and you can see directly in English which has imported loads of words from Old Normand : ON <wiket> Fr <guichet> En <wicket>. I wondering if the <gu> digraph is realised [gw] or [g] in Walloon (an Oïl language).

It is difficult for me to tell for sure Fr <étrange> (strange) is actually ending with a consonant. The overwhelming majority of Southerners – I mean the majority of those having a meridional accent – would pronounce <étrange> with a vowel probably less neutral than schwa at the end. Actually the final vocal would be a schwa (or ‘e muet’ = ‘mute e’) for Northerners with a fully-articulated pronunciation – that is different from Standard French where all ‘e’ seemed to be swallowed – or else even be the upside-down ‘a’ used in IPA to render the sound of German –er suffix for Southerners with a meridional accent.
So I’m not fully convinced that ALL Northern Romance languages have consonantal endings as opposed to their equivalents in Spanish <extraño > or Italian <stragno>.
Still, I’m following you when you single out Central Romance languages – as Catalan <estrany> and Occitan <estranh> – from Iberian and Italic Romance languages.

Jordi,

Perhaps you know this French saying : “C’est le cordonnier plus mal chaussé”. Such is ironically the case of French Occitany – by far the largest Occitanophone community – that is denied any legal status within the territory of the French Republic. Outside French borders Occitan’s base is much smaller but better established. This is the case of Val-d’Aran and the 12 Italian valleys lying at the south of Piedmontese Alps (not very far away from the Italian alpine areas where French and Arpitan, too, are generously granted a special status by Italian authorities).

The situation in France is exceptional – as usual, surrounded as she is by multilingual (or multilingual-friendly) countries : Spain (Catalan, Occitan, Basque…), Andorra (trilingual), Monaco (Italian), Italy (French, Occitan, Sardinian…), Switzerland (quadrilingual), Germany (Low Saxon…), Luxembourg (trilingual) and Belgium (trilingual). Even the UK seems to be less aggressive with Welsh than it used to be.

Even so, Occitan has so far had no chance to be given any commencement of juridical or administrative existence. Not because it is Occitan (all languages of France but French are treated the same) : because it is incompatible with how the French Republic perceives itself now – right or wrong. It is probable that one day Occitan – following the example of Catalan (if successful) – will be granted by Europe what it can only dream to get from French authorities. If Europe chooses to define Occitanophony as a pan-European (ie : non national), linguistic, historical entity, then a future French government might not veto such a status. If European authorities favoured an approach based on the concept of community (a defined population and/or a defined territory), then a French veto would be instant and final.

Is this fair ? Probably not so, from an Occitanist point of view. Is this wise ? Probably yes, according to the French acceptation of egalitarianism. France sees herself as a nation, not as a ‘Volk’. She even claims that no part of her can be a ‘Volk’. She believes the nation is made up of individuals, not communities, not territories. France self-representation is totally different from that of Spain.

If one single idiom is to be taken for national language, then why chose French rather than any other one ? The law of the strongest has prevailed here. I agree history was not fair : Occitan had every reason to become the national language of Southern France or of the entire country. The linguistic policy run by successive French governments (until late 70s) was ruthless and offensive. I reckon the current school system to be far more tolerant – even inclusive – with regards to languages spoken in France.

I think Occitan’s condition should and can be improved in spite of all that. But a true renaissance initiated or inspired by State decision-makers is extremely unlikely. I’d better bet on private initiative utilising media, technology and education.

Jordi, you are correct that Italians use the spelling "gn" to represent the palatal "n", but be advised that "strange" in Italian is "strano". I guess it's the only Romance language that does not palatize the the "n" in "strange". However the related word for "foreign" in Italian, "straniero", does contain a palatized n as the "ni" in the combination causes it to be pronounced as such.

I think Occitan is in grave danger by the French, but what can be done to preserve this as a living language?

Greg,

I should, of course, have made a diacronic study of Western Romania dialects. I was generally speaking of evolution of Latin words and not loan words:

Palatalisation "l". I meant Catalan was the only language that palatalised initial Latin words that had "l" in Latin. Castilian (spanish) has initial "l" since, as a language in contact with Basque it loses most initial "f" amb many of them become a palatalised "l" (flama<llama).

The same regarding Latin pronunciation of "ua" quatre in French (katr.) become "quatre" o "cuatro" in Spanish.

Initial "wu" can only exist in Latin languages with a strong Germanic substratum and that would explain "Wallonie". The normal thing would have been to say "Vallonie" in French. In fact it is Valonia in Occitan, Catalan and Castlian. Another thing is the lost of the "v" sound in Gascon, most Catalan dialects and Spanish where they sound like "b". It is both a Basque and Iberian thing. "Parler français comme une vache espagnole" actually comes from "Parler français com un basque espagol" because as Ceasar said of Aquitania "vivere bisbere est".

Regarding the pronunciation of French southerners it is actually the pronunciation of Occitan adapted to French. Many call this "francitan" and their habits cannot be taken into consideration for French evolutive pronunciation.

Well I would have to do some extra reading since I'm mainly a top tourism trade executive right now although I've never fully lost my love and readings of Romance languages.

Greg,
What I enjoyed about your analysis (regarding French linguistic policies) is the intelligent tone where you seem to want to explain why the French are different to (all!) their European neighbours. There is something quite Jacobin about your explanations, something which is hardly surprising since the French education system does not only give its citizens "a unique great language" but also a "unique hexagonal mind"; and the awareness that "France" is always more important than the "French" themselves. I call this a "légion d'honneur" mood and it's deeply rooted in the French soul. In that sense, and please forgive me the hateful comparison, the Spanish dictator Franco would have said: "España es una unidad de destino en lo universal". "In all that is universal Spain is a unity in its destiny."

I agree with you (how couldn't I?) that France is right now a European exception. I also agree France does not treat Occitan differently that it treats the other "languages of France". In Spanish they say "Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos" (What is bad for everybody comforts fools). It would have been extremely cruel to make the language of troubadours an exceptio, especially if you consider its contribution to world culture.

The only "languages of France" that seem to be still "breathing" are the one that receive support from outside France because they belong to "trans-national border lines", when the language happens to be official on the other side of the line (less than 1cm. away). Catalan and Basque near the Spanish border and Alsatian, more and more seen as what it should be (a German dialect) by young Alsatians and a powerful European German language that makes it very useful. I read somewhere than over 60% of young Alsatians speak fluent "Standard German"! Whether it be as a second (or "third" for those considering Alsatian a different language) language, the situation is quite remarkable since very few of the young people on the other side of that same border speak fluent French.

As the intelligent and sensible man you certainly are, you cannot state without having an opinion of your own:"because it is incompatible with how the French Republic perceives itself now – right or wrong."

It isn't "right" or "wrong", for the universal man you are either it's "wrong" or "right". That doesn't make you less French and it is "wrong" to leave the choice to the reader. Intellectually, it simply can't be done. You'd never do that when an organised murder occurs far away from your homeland. Courage is what we do about injustice where we live. I learnt that from France and the French revolution (at least as far as "courage" not "murder" is concerned.)

Anyway, France has been the major problem we' (the 8 million Catalan speakers) have had to have Catalan official in Europe although the Spanish Government fully agrees. Probably the French papers said little but ours' were full to the brim.

France is, in fact, trying to stop what happens in other neighbouring countries because it is more and more isolated (in this issue where, as you say, not even Great Britain feels threatened). If people want independence they'll want it whether or not they've lost their historic language (see at what happened in Ireland where Irish has more a symbolic statute than anything else.) There are very few Occitanist independentists (dreamers), most of them I know feel as French as you are but are deeply in love with their own history, culture and language. It might evolve, of course, but that is what freedom is all about.

You say: "Is this fair ? Probably not so, from an Occitanist point of view. Is this wise ? Probably yes, according to the French acceptation of egalitarianism."

It isn't fair and the French acceptation of egalitarianism has little to do with the Latin etym and with the semantic field of the word in neighbouring civilised countries. (By the way, I've just realised that "igual" keeps the "ua" whilst French says "égal" loses it, losing a lot more on the way.)

You say: " France self-representation is totally different from that of Spain."
As I told you Spain was exactly the same as France in 1975 under the Franco regime, when Catalan was repressed for 40 years. It had been official in the Spanish Republic of the 1930s. In this sense 2005 the French Republic is closer to Franco's policies than to the present day Spanish democracy or our republicanism of the 30s, based on the ideals of the French revolution.

You say: "The linguistic policy run by successive French governments (until late 70s) was ruthless and offensive. I reckon the current school system to be far more tolerant – even inclusive – with regards to languages spoken in France. "

I agree and it still is although an extra school hour or two might be presently granted if there is some kind of militant Occitanist teacher in the school willing to spend a lot of his time and energy, to find out a few years later that they have decided to give some other more "useful" subject. Right now Occitan posts are being banished in Occitania. I'm speaking of 2005 and you can look all that up in the Internet.

You say: "I think Occitan’s condition should and can be improved in spite of all that. But a true renaissance initiated or inspired by State decision-makers is extremely unlikely. I’d better bet on private initiative utilising media, technology and education."

I would say the solution is in technology and politics. The Occitan (and the others) need strong "regional" parties willing to put on pressure in Paris. That is what happened in Spain where, back in the 18th century, Felipe V, a French Bourbon (King Juan Carlos de Borbón is a direct descendant) tried to impose his will and French grandeur to a country like Spain. That has been one of the main cause of all our miseries and wars, because the peoples of Spain are brave and proud as far as their natural condition is concerned and a lot of pain would have been spared in Catalonia and the Basque Country.

I trust the peoples of France will sing to something like "aux langues, Citoyens!" , always better than the present day "weapon" version (aux armes, citoyens!).

Greg, I'm sure we'd make great friends. That is what "discussion" is all about.

PD. Tiffany I appreciate your comment on "strano". I don't speak Italian very often (although I studied it for a couple of years in college and I read it very well).
Regarding your comment:
"I think Occitan is in grave danger by the French, but what can be done to preserve this as a living language? "

As I said before it can only be done giving "all the French" real pride back and that means power. France will become a stronger country and it will be even more useful against "foreign" threats they now see and can't seem to manage.

Vivere bibere est

To live is to drink

According to Julius Ceasar, mocking the pronunciation of Aquitanians, who pronounced all "v" as "b" as does Basque, Gascon, Lengadocian. Castilian and northern Catalan dialects.

I assume you're implying that such features in said languages besides just Basque is due to substratum influence of that which is now known as Basque, rather than simply being a common feature in the dialects of vulgar Latin which differentiated into such (besides Basque of course).

Exactly, I was speaking of substratum. According to reseach and toponomy Basque or Basque related dialects where spoken in the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean coast. The actual reas of Basque is much smaller but it has been extremely useful to know the meanings of many place names.
As a matter of fact (a long history) Basque related dialects were not replaced by Ltin in many places but by Proto-Romance of even early Romance languages (all the way until the 10th century in some isolated regions and even more due to the Reconquista).